1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a roller grill separating device used in conjunction with a roller grill, which assists grill operators to separate uncooked products from cooked products and provide separate cooking areas for different products.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In this era of fast food, individuals are increasingly dependent on quick service restaurants and convenience stores for a quick meal. Beginning in the 1960's and increasing in popularity ever since, the roller grill became an efficient way to cook and store hot dogs and other products to be made readily available to consumers without being labor intensive. With the advent of roller grills, these products could be prepared without the necessity of the store clerk flipping or rolling the grilled food by hand throughout the day. The development of the gas station/convenience store made this type of food even more widely available and popular.
With more opportunities to sell more products in these numerous establishments, the industry began offering additional hot dog types of products such as sausage, a ¼ pound hot dog, spicy, mild, kielbasa, alternative meat hot dogs such as turkey, beef or soy, and others. All of these foods were still best prepared using the roller grill. Indeed, presently roller grills are still the leading hot dog cooker of choice for national convenience store chains, vending operations and cafeterias. These roller grills can be used on the front serving counter where customers serve themselves or on a back counter where a store employee takes an order from a customer and assembles and serves the food product such as a hot dog.
As noted above, the advantage of the roller grill is that the store operator does not need to continually monitor and roll the food products which frees the operator up for additional tasks. However, a problem arises in that the hot dogs can easily get ignored as the store clerk loses track of the time that each hot dog was originally placed on the grill. This problem becomes even worse with the practice of staggering hot dog placement on the grill. The employee must attempt to remember the time and flavor of each hot dog on the roller grill, and these grills are capable of cooking and holding a very large number of hot dogs. A poorly cooked hot dog can hurt or destroy a consumer's confidence in a particular eating establishment. Moreover, a hot dog which is undercooked or overcooked presents a serious health concern for the consumer, and the U.S. Department of Health has taken a strong interest in this issue.
Recent health and liability concerns have made it important to cook all foods to a predetermined temperature at a predetermined rate. This requirement by the U.S. Department of Health makes it critical that the operator keep track of how long each and every hot dog has been on the roller grill. In addition, with the many different flavors of hot dogs noted above, it is also important that the operator be able to identify the flavor of each and every hot dog on the grill.
There are products on the market for convenience stores and the like to merchandise the various hot dog flavors. These products are made of metal or plastic wire with either a plastic or metal sign area having two legs that extend through the rollers and a further perpendicular leg that passes between different rollers to support the sign. The problem with this type of grill sign is that they are not sanitary. Further, the signs take up too much space on the grill which could be used for cooking. In addition, the metal signs are hot to the touch, and therefore they cannot be moved easily and create a burning hazard to the operator. Despite the critical importance of monitoring cooking time, none of the then existing devices helped the operator keep track of cooking time or elapsed time.
These problems have been solved by the present inventor in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,101,927 and 6,474,223. These patents illustrate a roller grill monitoring device having a clock face, a base which fits in between rollers of a grill roller, a stem for attaching the clock face to the base and a support structure attached to the stem disposed at a distance above the base so as to rest on the grill rollers. The device is inexpensive to make, is sanitary and made of a heat resistant material. The device further includes a removable signage area for sign clips that are used for identifying and marketing different types of food products such as hot dogs. Further, U.S. Pat. No. 6,474,223 illustrates the device that has openings and associated structure for accommodating at least one thermometer for monitoring the cooking temperature of the food product.
Although these inventions enabled grill operators to determine when the product is cooked, there are some problems left unsolved. In a roller grill that can cook many food products at one time, it is not always the case that one type of products are placed on the grill and removed from the grill all at once. Rather, the number of the products on the grill gradually decreases based on sale, and a grill operator keeps adding uncooked food on the grill accordingly. Therefore, cooked products and uncooked products are on the grill at the same time, and it is possible that uncooked products touch and contaminate cooked products. Without an effective grill separating device, it is hard for a grill operator to organize and manage the grill. It is also hard to identify which part is cooked and which part is uncooked, and which part is one type of products and which part is another. Also, hot dog items can move or “walk” from side to side and away from their respective sign identifier thus confusing customers and operators and making the grill look unorganized. A separator device keeps them from walking and better merchandises the grill.
There is presently no device that effectively separates cooked products from uncooked products or one kind of products from another. Moreover, there is no device that effectively separates cooking area on a grill without taking cooking space and at the same time displays marketing information and the type of food product for the operator and consumers.